Last year I played a lot of middling games and few that were truly amazing or awful. Here are the five I disliked most…

 

5. Tomb Raider

A very polished, faux-gritty Uncharted clone. Rhianna Pratchett didn’t write the leering camera or QTE deaths.

4. A Link Between Worlds

Posterboy for how little we still expect from games. The Zelda revolution that never happened. A trifle.

3. Device 6

All style, boring substance. Promising textscapes ruined by tired single-solution puzzles. A misuse of rereading.

2. The Stanley Parable

A self-satisfied bit of cleverness. An inside joke with no outside. Insufferably chatty. Not even funny.

1. BioShock Infinite

Obviously.

 

Here are the 10 best games I played last year…

 

10. My Father’s Long, Long Legs

A super creepy Twine horror (just look at that title) that also feels true.

9. SteamWorld Dig

A classic from an alternate 90s and proof that digging is a potent but still underutilized gaming verb.

8. The Last of Us

Has stuck with me since last summer. A game with real nerve. If only its mechanics were as bold as its ending.

7. Papers, Please

Too long, too gamey, and should be a roguelike. But also vital, unforgettable.

6. Brothers

Sincere, evocative, with only-in-a-game meaning via motion (marred by one unfortunate choice near the end).

5. Depression Quest

Pitiless in its logic, empathetic in its aim. Expands the purview of games, and players. Makes us less alone.

4. Tearaway

Something new under the sun. Embraces the weirdness of being a player (with a face). Surprisingly moving in the end.

3. Zen Bound 2

A meditation on objects & self, every nook & cranny. A game that returns us to the everyday, where we still live.

2. Kentucky Route Zero

Even unfinished (and likely a best of 2014 too), no game was more magical, or more haunting.

1. Problem Attic

@ellaguro’s (Liz Ryerson’s) game of prisons is a triumph of glitch art and a ruiner of ‘videogames’. A beautiful fuck you.

 

(originally posted to Twitter on January 31, 2014; other years can be found here)